


Unconventional Family Reunions

by KamalasFanfiction



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, DC Cinematic Universe, DCU (Comics)
Genre: Barbara Gordon is Oracle, Bat Family, Blood and Injury, Child Death, Comics/Movie Crossover, Crossover, Crying, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Guilt, Hurt/Comfort, Jason Todd is Red Hood, Jewish Bruce Wayne, Latino Jason Todd, Mild Language, Minor Violence, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Resurrection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-27
Updated: 2016-08-05
Packaged: 2018-07-18 13:20:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7316830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KamalasFanfiction/pseuds/KamalasFanfiction
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jason Todd returns from the grave, and Bruce is convinced it's nothing short of a miracle. Jason knows he's been alive again for quite some time, and that something's not quite right with the Batcave.</p><p>But they're willing to ignore it all and pretend like they're from the same universe.</p><p><i>Or</i>:</p><p>Bruce and Jason finally talk on equal terms, and all it took was an accidental multiverse crossover.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Alfred catches him at the foot of the display case for the third time this week. Bruce has never considered himself a religious man (couldn’t afford to, really, what with running around the city in a bat costume and enacting justice), but he’s been sitting on the pedestal, looking up at Jason’s suit, contemplating heaven. He can admit to fearing that Superman had been an avenger, some form of retribution- a sign. He can still remember the anger in his stomach, like a hot coal, when the adrenaline wore off and he was looking at the ruins of Gotham. _Not again_ , he’d thought, _I can’t lose everything again_. Holding onto the little girl’s sweater, looking up at the war in the sky. The Wayne building crumbled behind him.

A fight between gods. Thunder without lightning shaking the foundations of the city. _A building crumbling. Thunder. Explosions from a distance_. _A child in his arms_.

He can’t admit to the weakness he’d felt, the terror, the burning warehouse behind his eyes. He’d heard someone describe Gotham as Hell on earth once, and, in that moment, he was inclined to believe them. The same nightmare, repeated. Losing his faith again. He doesn’t know if he’s torturing himself or trying to ask for forgiveness, but the glass case is the only place Bruce feels connected to Jason any more.

He can’t even open the door to Jason’s room. Six years ago and he can still remember how it looked- how meticulously neat Jason had made everything, like he didn’t truly live there. He wishes he’d left a shirt out of the hamper, a book out of place. He has footage of Jason’s first steps as Robin (something he’d thought the two of them would look back on and laugh at when he was Dick’s age, grown into another costume and name), replays it to hear his son’s voice again. The converted guest room collects dust.

He has a few homework sheets and a sweater vest that had still been in the laundry when they went to find Sheila to remind him that Jason existed. The rest is his memories.

The rest is Robin.

He sits at the edge of the pedestal and wonders at an afterlife. If he closes his eyes, he can still see his son, figuring out how high his kicks can go. “Being Robin gives me magic!” And he laughs, and he laughs, and he laughs. Eyes sparkling, a grin so wide that it’s contagious. Bruce can’t take the uniform out of the glass. He’s afraid he’ll ruin the magic.

 _Jokes on you, Batman._ Bruce reads it over and over until keeping his eyes open burns. Sometimes he cries (quiet tears and a struggling mouth to keep the sobs in his throat), sometimes he blinks and the words are behind his eyelids.

He’s still waiting for the punchline.

When he was a younger man, he used to bother Alfred with questions of morality. He was terrified his idea of justice was maligned- that, whether in an afterlife they didn’t believe in or in the ground, he was shaming his parents. A crusade that began with his parents and ended with him losing his child. He stopped asking because he learned every parent’s fear.

He would give his life to have Jason live again. He answered his own questions.

“Master Bruce.” Alfred calls his name, his hand falling from Bruce’s shoulder. He used to bring food down, but the plate would sit untouched, so all he gives him is ice water and a reason to look away. Few words between them, Bruce takes the glass gently, tilts it to drink. His hands are clammy. He can feel sweat on the back of his neck. November nights are long. It’s an entire month of mourning.

There’s a hotel room under his name in a part of the city where no one cares about Bruce Wayne. It’s the only place where he can get away from the silence in the Batcave. He takes an Audi there, parks on the side of the street, and has long since stopped worrying about people stealing his car, his tires. He has spares.

The woman behind the front desk doesn’t check for an ID. He pays upfront and takes the keys and the room is so small that even breathing seems limited. The linens are scratchy and the pillow is covered in plastic and the showers are communal.

For just a little while, he can pretend he isn’t Bruce or Batman. He can pretend that everything is alright. Close his eyes and fight nightmares while Dick takes care of Bludhaven and Barbara coordinates the GCPD and her Birds of Prey. Scream himself awake in a world that doesn’t demand silence.

The cowl is off during November. He can’t bring himself to feel worthy of it.

-

The only reason Bruce knows the Batcave was broken into is because Barbara calls him, frantically, in the middle of the night, to tell him so. “The weapons vault- it was accessed from the old entrance behind the clo-” Barbara’s voice cuts, and he’s sure she’s talking on another mike to Black Canary. Her voice is tired, a rasp to it, and he’d chastise her if he wasn’t trying to figure out how to put pants on while running on two hours of sleep himself. She cuts back on. “Thermal cameras show a muscular male build, approximately six-foot-two-inches tall- what’s your ETA? I can send Dick over there if you’re too far-”

“Almost out of the door, Barbara-” There was a Batsuit stashed in the old Manor, but it was the only one he’d have access to with the Batcave compromised. “What’s happening on your end?” One sock on, both shoes on, and he’s running out of the door, not caring if he locked it behind him. He didn’t travel with anything important.

He can hear her tapping at her keyboard- attempting to switch camera views. “You shut off the surveillance cameras.” She notes, with a touch of surprise. “Why would you turn off the surveillance cameras?”

For his own privacy. Seeing their old mentor frequently cry on camera for a month would ruin morale for them, and he didn’t want to hurt them like that. They also didn’t need to see how often he slept on the floor, for similar reasons. “Can you tell what’s happening from the thermals?”

“It, uh.” Barbara stops, and he can hear her pinkie nail tapping rapidly at the edge of her keyboard. Her nervous habit. “They look like they’re doing an inventory check.”

Bruce pulls up short on his way to the parking lot. “What?” That didn’t match any of the Arkham residents’ profiles. There weren’t any that would check his inventory before robbing it, exactly. He realizes he’s in the middle of a crosswalk and starts moving again, long strides to his car. “Are you sure Dick is in Bludhaven?” The height profile didn’t match Dick, but thermal cameras could only be so accurate...

“I have eyes on him right now.” The static on the other end cuts out for a second, leaving Bruce with silence as he unlocks his car and starts it. Starts driving to the Manor, thinking about how he _can’t_ be Batman, not now-

A fundamental truth he ignored during every other month: Batman was nothing without Robin. In the quiet of his thoughts, the bright lights of Gotham at night, he’s left with the thought- how he’s going to have to suit up and fight when he wasn’t even sure there was a reason to any more. How long he’d fought for Gotham, how long it had remained irredeemable.

But this wasn’t a fight for Gotham- it was a fight for his home. Whoever knew about the clock entrance was a problem- it was something he’d managed to hide, no matter how famous he and his house parties had become. The rest of the house was in ruins, but the clock still ran, was still coated in varnish.

He wonders if Alfred visited the Manor more often than he let on.

“Intruder moved out of the weapons vault.” He’d thrown the cellphone into the passenger’s seat, put it on speaker so he could put his full attention on going the proper amount of speeding for the GCPD not to care. Barbara still sounds confused- her nail tapping drowns out any other background noise. “It- it looks like they’re trying to access the Batcomputer.” She swallows- she knows it isn’t normal either. “Must be a new player in Gotham- I’ll remote access the computer so I can see what they’re-”

Her voice cuts off in a raw, long gasp. The finger tapping stops.

Bruce pulls up to the Wayne property, grabs the cell phone, and starts walking into the manor, pitching his voice to a whisper. “Barbara? Is everything alright?”

“ _They’re trying to use Jason’s password_.” Bruce feels the twin horror they both experience, the way his heart feels like it’s trying to wring itself out. “Bruce- Bruce, did you- did you revoke Jason’s access?”

He can’t answer that. “He’s dead.” It’s the only thing he knows is true. No matter who fell from the sky, what woman rose from myths- Jason Todd was dead. “I- I didn’t see the reason to- it was a security risk I couldn’t-”

He’s not sure when he set the phone down and put the Batsuit hidden in the supply closet on, but he looks down and sees his hands in the gloves. Flexes his fingers and watches them respond. “I’ll keep you posted, Oracle.” Which he only says because he wants to let her know that he could be overheard- but also because he knows that it started off as a personal, courtesy call. Barbara wasn’t his personal security system announcer- she was a member of the family that wanted to do him a favor. “Thank you for informing me.”

“Call back if you need anything.” The line goes dead, but not before he hears her adjacent monitor’s output- the distant sound of gunfire. He never forgets that she’s managing her own group of superheroes- he couldn’t be prouder if she were his own blood. They both know he won’t call back if he needed anything- he’s never grown out of thinking he’s the one to go to for help, not to ask for it.

Bruce had forgotten how cold it was, going through the clock entrance. He wonders if it’s age biting at him, or if there’d been a heating system that he’d been neglecting. He tended to prefer driving directly into the Cave, instead of taking the stairs. They’re long and winding, and it gets darker as he goes down, before exploding into the clinical white light of the Batcave.

As always, he’s blinded before his eyes adjust. He hears two clicks in the dark- the safety coming off of two guns. His costume isn’t ideal for hiding under what are essentially spotlights, but he dives to the right, where a medical table held instruments for stitching. He doesn’t hear any firing.

Two clicks again.

“ _Batman_?” The voice is mature, disbelieving, the sudden slip into a sharp Mexican accent. A shaky breath into the sterile air. Bruce still hasn’t gotten a good look at him.

Before he can find out whether or not the safety is on or off on the intruder’s guns, he throws a handful of smoke pellets down on the ground in his general direction, springing up from his position to take a running start at him. In close proximity, he sees a red helmet.

A red hood.

He rolls out of the way before the intruder can land a hit on him, strikes at the back of his knees with his foot. The guns go back into the holsters while the Red Hood copycat bends his knees to avoid the hit. “Batman? I’m-” Frustration. The helmet can probably filter through the smoke. Bruce lands a hard punch to his stomach- enough to knock the breath out of him- he can hear the exhale through the helmet. “ _Fuck,_ didn’t we get enough of this the first time?”

“Who are you?” Interrogation mid-fight was never his strong suit, but he can’t afford to get this man to the police headquarters while he knew so much about Batman- about Bruce Wayne. “Another Joker copycat, I can see that much- but why here?  _What do you know_?” His anger is slipping. His anger is slipping out, and Bruce can feel it- how good it feels to _hit_ something and ignore the knot of dread in his stomach. It’s not the logical way, it’s not the smart way, or the best way- but the idea crosses his mind that the intruder is walking into Jason’s space.

It doesn’t leave.

The Red Hood keeps taking hits- obvious hits, ones that novices could dodge. He’s knocked to the floor, and, jarred by the crash, frozen and staring upwards. He keeps trying to speak, but Bruce keeps swinging, and he knows he should stop, but he’s afraid he can’t stop- if he stops he loses- the joke just keeps being told over and over again- “ _Bruce_.” The Red Hood catches his hand. Bruce aims for a kick, and he curls away from it. The helmet is pushed in- the bottom fully broken. Crushed inwards, he can see a swollen and split lip under it. “ _Stop_. **_Stop_** _._ ”

If he hadn’t said his name, he’s not sure he could’ve.

He doesn’t move his hand out of his grip. “How... how do you know my name?” He doesn’t fix his stance. He leaves himself open for attack, because he’s paralyzed in this man’s grip. He uses his arm to shakily get to his feet, and Bruce lets him. He used Jason’s password. He did an inventory check.

The stranger’s eyes widen behind the hood- he can see the reflection behind the white. “Bruce, it’s- it’s me.” He lets go of his hand, and it drops limply to the side. His fingers hook underneath the jaw of the hood, triggering a locking mechanism. The front of it pops out, and the first thing Bruce sees is a broken, swollen lip. A broken nose. He peels the mask off quickly, leaving the skin underneath raw. Wet green eyes and brown skin. He sets the helmet down onto the adjacent table, the mask crammed into his pocket. “I- We’re not on the best of terms, sure, but-”

Bruce’s voice shakes. “Jason?” He pulls himself to full height, until he’s looking up at the man in front of him that shares such uncanny resemblance to his son. It’s weakness. He doesn’t beg as Bruce Wayne, as Batman. “ _Jason_?”

But he does as Jason Todd’s father.

“Yeah, old man, I-” Jason reaches out to touch Bruce, clap him on the shoulder, but his hand shrinks away. Bruce is suddenly reminded that he had him on the floor, punching his helmet inwards. “I was just here the other day and-” His eyes dart around the room. “It didn’t look like this when I was here. None... None of this looked like...”

“Would you mind if I... took a blood sample?” Bruce has to twist his tongue to sound so formal. He doesn’t think he can afford hope- afford the _defeat_ , the resignation if this wasn’t Jason. He wants to apologize- the eye color is wrong, the age and body is wrong, but the eye shape is the same, the nose is the same, the skin color, the _freckles_...

“I... Again?” Bruce doesn’t know when he’s referring to- he did take blood samples for Jason every other month (after finding out that Dick had had a major hypoglycemic attack as Nightwing from not eating properly), but it sounds different. Like a reference he doesn’t quite understand. “I mean, I guess...?” But he’s still looking at Bruce out of the corner of his eyes. Like Bruce is the thing that’s wrong with the picture.

He seats Jason on the Batcomputer’s desk chair because he used to love spinning in it- treating him like his Jason until proven otherwise. He pulls the medical supplies out from their sterilized compartment- taking out a syringe with a tube attached to the end of it. Jason sits in silence as he rolls his black sleeve up and exposes his arm. It’s the first time Bruce notices the giant red bat on his chest, and he’s frozen, still staring at it. “Do you need help?” Jason asks, apprehension still on his face, looking at the syringe.

Bruce jerks back into reality and shakes his head, swiping the site with a sterile wipe. It takes him a while to keep his hands from shaking as he searches for a vein- and, when he does find one, the first thing he thinks about is that he would be much happier if he didn’t go through all of the trouble and just pretended that this was Jason. Even if it wasn’t.

He finishes taking the blood sample while Jason looks right at him, the needle in his peripheral. His teeth slightly grit. “I’m sorry.” Bruce’s voice is hoarse, and he pulls the needle out, twists the tube out and caps it. He puts a cotton ball and a bandaid over the drawing site. Throws the needle out in the trash can underneath the computer. “I know you don’t like needles, but I just need to-”

“Make sure it’s really me. Got it.” But the tension in Jason’s shoulders doesn’t relax. It occurs to Bruce that his chest is rising and falling too quickly- the onset of a panic attack. He shoves the tube into his utility belt and darts for a paper bag- Jason snatches it out of his hands before he’s all the way there, his fist tight around the base of the bag while his breath forces in then out. In the midst of it all, he hears him wheeze out something that sounded like, “ _Again_.”

Bruce doesn’t know what to do. He reaches out for Jason, but he shrinks back, one hand barely moving up and off of the chair to halt him. Bruce remembers he just beat his son down on the floor.

Bruce remembers how Jason just laid there and let him.

“Jason, I-” Bruce holds up both of his hands. _He doesn’t know what to do._ “Jason, is there anything I can-” His breathing is slowing down. Bruce isn’t sure if it’s because he’s calming down or if he’s about to pass out.

When Jason pulls the bag away from his mouth, his lip is split all the way open, blood from his nose running down his chin, mixed with tears from the panic. He swipes at it with his sleeve, smearing it, rooting Bruce to the spot, horrified. “Run the test.” He says, and it’s weak, and Bruce wants to apologize- he doesn’t know what’s going on, he doesn’t know what to do- his dead son is alive and had a panic attack and-

He runs the test. Jason is quiet and clenched-jaw the entire time, his eyes constantly darting around the Batcave. Bruce watches Jason, how his feet finally comfortably touch the floor from the chair. It takes five minutes for the Batcomputer to analyze the blood sample and match it to the one on file for Jason Todd.

Bruce cries big, ugly tears when it matches up, mouthing ‘ _Jason_ ’ to himself while wiping at the tears that slipped out from under the cowl. He rips it off at the nose, turning to face his son, who- who he just beat and- “Jason, one secon-” He’s going to get a cold compress for his lip and nose, but he’s reminded of Alfred- he quickly pins in the emergency code for Alfred, an automated response reporting his location in the guest house out back- ETA five minutes.

He comes back with a cold wash cloth and moves very, _very_ quickly in cleaning up his face- smoothing over a nose that had healed wrong to begin with- that he’d messed up- “Tell me if I’m pressing too hard- I don’t want to hurt you.” The silence hangs in the room. Jason is staring at him. “I... I didn’t know it was you earlier, Jason- there’ve been a lot of resurgence Joker groups and- that doesn’t excuse what I did but...” His hands are shaking.

Jason stands up and grabs his hand with both of his and takes the towel out from it, cleaning up the rest of the blood. “You’re... You’re gray, Bruce.” He says, as if it’s a new observation. His words are slightly lisped through his fat lip. “You’re gray, and the manor’s gone to shit, and the Batcave is under a _lake_ , and... Where _is_ everyone?” He looks around, his eyes stilling when they rest on his costume’s case.

“Jason, I don’t really understand what you’re talking about- _who_ you are talking about. Barbara and Dick?” Bruce leans against the back of the monitor’s counter, but his heart's still beating out of his chest- he can’t believe his eyes. So he blinks, quickly, just in case this might be some elaborate hallucination.

“No- well, _yeah_ , but-” Jason makes a wide-armed gesture. “Cass? Tim? _Damian_?” His voice cracks on the last name, and Bruce is thinking of every person he’s ever met with similar names- but there were none that Jason had met or cared about before.

“Son-” He sees Jason’s eyes go wide and watery. He doesn’t know why, and it breaks his heart. “Son, I- I live alone. It’s just me and Alfred, usually- Dick and Barbara might stop by, but-” Bruce wants to help (he wants to be his _dad_ again, fix everything and help him with his homework), but he’s only working with half of his brain- the other half chanting _alive, alive, alive, alive_. He reaches for Jason and, this time, he lets him hold him, and Jason is so _tall_ now- he doesn’t know how, but he missed his little boy growing up into a man. He feels his chest constrict before he lets out a choked sob. “You’re _alive_ , Jason. _Alive_.” And he keeps smoothing his hands up and down his back, as if he’s going to lose him- like he’s going to blink it all away.

Alfred enters through the smaller lake entrance- a set of stairs triggered by a set of branches being jostled on a tree. His footsteps are soft and light, but Jason still hears them and tenses up. The pump of a shotgun.

Bruce stops breathing when he feels Jason turn the both of them so that his back is to the threat, shielding Bruce, one hand on his gun. And then he pushes Jason at arm’s length, his lack of tension saying all that needed to be said about a lack of a threat, and Jason relaxes marginally, looking right into Bruce’s eyes.

Alfred interrupts a teary reunion and, holding a shotgun that he’d brought in case of another assassins’ break-in, stands still and wary. “Master Bruce-” Because Bruce never pulls the cowl down in the Batcave with other people- always trying to keep the line between Bruce Wayne and Batman from blurring. Alfred almost doesn’t know what to call him. “I... Am I interrupting something?”

“ _Alfred_.” Bruce says, with the voice of a long-suffering man. He shakes Jason, just slightly, _presenting_ him with a watery smile and tight hands on Jason’s shoulders. The results of the blood test are still up on the screen. “ _Jason_.”

Alfred’s hands start shaking- Jason can see it even in his peripheral, and he pulls away from Bruce to take the shotgun out of his hands, setting it softly onto the table. He’s the one to embrace Alfred, not the other way around, and Alfred lets out a shuddering breath at the fact that his head can easily rest on Jason’s shoulder. “Hey, _hey_ \- shhh.” Jason’s attempt to articulate splits his scabbing lip again, but he doesn’t seem to pay any attention as he rocks Alfred slightly. Bruce watches the distant look in his eye, the worry in his brow- the way his cheeks suck inwards to bite on them. “I’m here, I’m here- don’t worry, I’m real.”

They stay that way for several minutes, until Alfred breaks the silence with a quiet offer of food, pulling back and holding Jason at arm’s length in a similar manner to how Bruce had. “The oven in the manor doesn’t work anymore, but I can- I can still make you sugar cookies and...” He breathes, long and forcing himself to steady it. “ _Tea_. I don’t... I don’t have any _piloncillo_ to make you _champurrado_ , but-” He rushes to assure him, eyes wide- like not having his favorite hot drink might suddenly snatch Jason back out of existence. “I can still run to the store- the international market is twenty-four hours in the Na-”

“Alfred, really, you don’t have to go through all of the trouble.” Jason looks over at Bruce, who looks just as rattled, then back at Alfred again. “I saw the emergency protocol on the screen- you live in one of the guest houses?”

Alfred nods, quick and short (he often protested to it being called a guest house- Bruce like to bring it up to joke with him, to which he’d point out how he’d _definitely earned it_ through his many years of service), then cranes his neck to look between Jason and Bruce, including him in the conversation and taking his hands off of Jason’s shoulders. “It’d be best to talk there- this cave is certainly _no place_ to be discussing your- your _resurrection_! At least my house has a _couch_ \- for God’s sake, Master Bruce, you would give your son an _office chair_ to get comfortable in?”

Jason touches his heart, somewhat touched by Alfred’s offense on his part, but then rests it on Alfred’s back. “You lead the way, Alfred- I’ll be honest, I have no clue where any of the exits are, outside of the one behind the clock.” Under his breath, almost to the point where Alfred couldn’t hear him. “‘ _Place is more like goddamned maze than it was before_.”

“Yes, come on.” Alfred moves to take his hand, like he’s still eleven and needs help finding his way back out of the manor, but hesitates, pulling back. Instead, he tilts his head slightly to indicate Jason and Bruce follow him, like Jason was fifteen and still needed help finding his way back out of the manor. He shares a brief but telling look with Bruce, and continues the train of thought that his mind had turned to. “You have a lot to tell us, certainly.”

Jason takes one last look around the unfamiliar Batcave, picking his hood up from the table. He feigns confidence. “Yeah, ‘course.”

Bruce is the only one that notices.


	2. Chapter 2

Jason doesn’t fit right in Alfred’s leather chair. That’s the first thing Bruce notices.

The next thing he notices is how Jason’s head continuously cranes around, like he’d never seen it before. Sure, it had been a decade since he’d died, but barely anything had been moved. Alfred was sentimental, and the biggest thing that ever changed was his tea selection. Even the furniture rarely moved, because there was rarely anyone to sit in it.

When Jason sits down, his weight pushes it backward, scuffing the floor. He startles, eyebrows raised, and stands back up immediately, turning around to put it back in its original place. He sits back down, more carefully, and places his hands in his lap, the helmet by his feet. Peering over the bar dividing the kitchen from the living room, Alfred scoffs. “Master Jason, no matter the-” There’s a slight pause as if he’s trying to figure out how to tactfully describe the current situation. Bruce is honestly still trying to parse it all out himself. “No matter the _circumstances_ , this remains your home. As if I would chastise you over scuff marks after ten years of...” He trails off.

A wobbly smile comes over Jason’s face, but it’s gone as quickly as it appeared, his face dropping back into a cautious thin-lipped look. He nods, shortly, even though only the back of his head is visible to Alfred. “Sorry, Alfred.” It’s the same tone he’d use any time he was scolded- sliding down the banister, sneaking batter while Alfred was baking, being caught trying on Dick’s old clothes. 

Bruce feels a dry sob crawl up his throat like it was something tangible. They sit in relative silence, the sound of tea boiling and steeping as the only thing breaking the silence. Jason gets up to snatch a couple of tissues and hold them under his nose to catch the blood while Bruce wonders how he could ever start to apologize in a way that encompassed how shitty he felt about hurting him. All of those nightmares, the flashbacks about not getting to his son fast enough to save him-

Like some sort of mockery. He wonders if he’s in some sort of nightmare, hurting the only person he’s tried to save.

By the time Alfred sets the tea tray onto the table, the inside of his left hand is bright red from pinching himself, feeling the pain, confirming the strange reality. “So,” He starts, stops, then forces his shaky tone into something he hasn’t truly felt for years. Something like hope, like confidence. Something he can’t place. “Understandably, we have a few questions for you. I... have a few questions.” Alfred takes his seat beside him on the couch, adjusting his glasses and making eye contact with Jason.

Jason looks just as shaken, his hands knotted together, thumbs pressing white indents into the opposite hand. “That makes two of us, at least.” When he meets Bruce’s eye again, there’s something searching in his gaze, something inquisitive. “At least you being a nosy bastard didn’t change.”

Alfred snorts and covers his surprised smile with one hand, looking away to hide it from Bruce. Bruce raises his eyebrows, his mouth lifting at the edges. “There’s that much.” He looks away to give a wry smile, then reins himself back in, inhale-exhale. “So, how... how did you-” He struggles, his tongue tied in knots.

“How long have you been alive, again?” Alfred rephrases for him, leaning forward, his elbows on top of his knees. “I- this, you can see, brings up the unpleasant idea of you never, well, dying-”

Jason squints, his fingers twitching. Counting the years. Bruce feels his mouth drop in horror when it exceeds two. “I, uh, think five.” His shoulders are pulled high, uncomfortable. “We never really got around to talking about my whole, er, resurrection- not until you wanted to revive Damian so I don’t really-” He casts another untrusting look in Bruce’s direction, then pulls his hands apart to flex them. “There was a bit before I got put in the Lazarus pit where I’m really foggy on details, so I can’t really judge how long that was.” It was easier for him to speak when he wasn’t looking at them.

Bruce still doesn’t know who Damian is, but he’s willing to table that for a later discussion. His lips press together, the detective work of the story the part he’s most comfortable with- filling in the blank. “Ra’s al Ghul was the one to bring you back to life?” The idea of Ra’s bringing Jason back was horrifying in and of itself, if only because he always had a motive to his actions. He cuts that line of thought off immediately, focuses on the fact. “The _Lazarus pit_ brought you back. I... I should have thought of that.”

Negotiating with the League of Assassins was always complicated business, but there wasn’t a thing on Earth that Bruce could name that he wouldn’t have given up for Jason. He should’ve thought of that. He could’ve brought his son back- he could’ve had him back without any harm he could’ve-

“I was brought back before the Lazarus pit.” Jason leans forward from his straight posture, leaning towards Bruce. “I... I don’t really know what did that part of it all- I woke up in my coffin, I... I remember that...” He grows distant, eyes clouding over.

“Jason, you don’t have to say anything if it hurts you.” Alfred gets up and, maneuvering around the untouched tea, pouring a single cup and passing it to Jason, who held it between his two hands. He sits beside him, setting his hand gently on his knee. “I’m just glad that you’re back- I’m not going to split hairs over the particulars of the fact.”

But Bruce is transfixed. Horrified, but captured by the desperate fear for his son. A spiraling sense of pity dragging his heart down in his chest and he needs to know what happened. What happened in the coffin, in the Lazarus pit. He has to know what happened to his son when he wasn’t paying any attention, when he couldn’t save him _again_. “Jason, what do you remember before the pit?”

“We, uh, didn’t talk about this for a reason, I think.” Jason’s eyes dart everywhere except in Bruce’s direction. “ _You_ don’t really want to hear it, _I_ don’t want to think about it.” He lifts his cup to his mouth and drinks despite the steam rising off of it, his upper lip tinged pink when he pulls the cup away. “This whole thing is just... This is just wrong. It’s in the past and all that shit. No need to dig up old graves.” Embarrassment crawls up his neck, until his face is obviously pinked, and the cup shakes in his hands.

“Jason, we... we have to talk about what happened- everything that’s happened since then, it’s because of-” Ten goddamn years later, and Bruce still can’t talk about Jason dying. He wonders if it’s the coward’s way out, making Jason recount it instead. He can’t decide if he wants to hear what happened for Jason or for himself.

“I woke up in the goddamn coffin and I thought it was all some shit the Joker was playing, _okay_?” His tone is defensive, vulnerable. His shoulders push out in mock confidence, his words crude to make it seem like it was like recounting the Sunday news. “Banged my fists on the wood and yelled for Batman because I was pissing myself thinking about how many minutes I had left to breathe air.”

Alfred’s head ducks down, his hand coming to touch his forehead. “ _Jesus_.” Tears sting his eyes and he swallows. He searches for the logic, suddenly grasped by the fear that they could’ve _known_ something was wrong but overlooked it as a malfunction. “I- Master Bruce had sensors placed on the coffin-” That they could’ve slept through Jason waking up, dead.

“For if anyone tried to break in.” Jason fills in. His hands are shaking, and he forces another scalding sip. His busted lip stings and it keeps him from crying, from the small panic bubbling in his stomach. “I broke _out_. I... I still thought I was Robin and I kept slamming my fists against the wood until it broke, and my knuckles broke, and then I pulled my shirt over my head to keep from eating dirt and crawled out of six feet of soil.” His voice cracks on ‘crawled’ and his shaking becomes noticeable.

“Jason, I- I’m so sorry, I should have-” Jason’s cup breaks in his increasingly tight grip, and the first thing he does is let out a long swear.

Bits of china and hot tea spray his hands and the carpet, and he goes immediately to pick up the shards, the little bits stuck in his hands. “Shit, _fuck_ , Alfred, I’m so sorry- I know this is your best set I can’t believe I-” Two sets of hands move into his line of sight, and neither of them reaches for the glass on the floor.

“Master Jason.” Alfred’s face is red and pulled into a tight frown. “Really, items are items. I wouldn’t give a damn if it had been given to me by _royalty-_ there’s no need to be more concerned over one old cup than your own safety.” With a surgeon’s precision, he picks out a shard that had gone into Jason’s palm and is infinitely glad that it’s shallow. He drops it on the floor amidst the mess. “I know you’re used to running patrols this late, but perhaps it would’ve been wiser for us to have gotten a good night’s rest before all of... this... mess...”

Jason’s face breaks in a painful twist of his lip, his skin an agitated red as he finally lets himself cry. “Sorry- sorry- I just can’t believe- this can’t be real- I-” He looks around the room, with horror and a deep-seated sadness. “Is this what it could’ve been if I hadn’t-”

The chair sinks on the opposite side of him, and his vision is obscured by the black of the batsuit, Bruce gently easing Jason into his chest. “I shouldn’t have pushed you, Jason.” His hand smooths down his back, and Jason lets out an uneven sob, one that pinches quiet and closed at the end. Unused to crying. “I’m sorry for a lot of things, but you... you were the last person I should’ve ever let the Joker hurt.” Jason’s sob suddenly blares loud, and his hands, bleeding and burnt, clutch the cape, smashing his face into Bruce’s chest. “Alfred was right- I shouldn’t be so picky about how you came back, and just appreciate the fact that you are back.”

“No, no, it’s fine, it’s fine,” Jason says, shaking his head back and forth, while it sounds decidedly not fine. His voice is thick with tears, his tongue sounding heavy and unpracticed. “I just... I’ve never been able to- We didn’t talk about-” Bruce holds him tighter, confused by his words but unwilling to let him go while he cried.

“The first thing we need to do is clean you up,” Bruce says, in the same way he used to say it when Jason was small and thought he was invincible. He pushes Jason to arm’s length, keeping his hands firmly on his upper arms. Jason’s arms fall away from his back and dangle at his sides, watching Bruce through swollen eyelids just as much as Bruce watched him. He assesses the damage that their fight had done, feels his face twitch as he holds in a cringe. “You... I didn’t do any permanent damage, but we’ll need to use a liquid stitch for the cuts around your mouth...”

“You’re so pretentious.” Jason’s shoulders shake, but this time he’s laughing, just slightly. He wipes the tears out of his eyes, his smile small and distorted by his fat lip. “It’s just super glue.” Alfred shakes his head, amused, and pats his knee, getting up to get the first aid kit, but he’s out of Jason’s line of sight, which remained focused on Bruce.

Bruce lets out a dry chuckle. “Fair enough. We’ll need to get you a change of clothes- you shouldn’t have to sleep in your armor.” He looks at the armor and pride shines in his eyes- his head tilts slightly at the sight of the bat on his son’s chest, even if his helmet resembled the Joker’s old monicker. “We still have your clothes, though I doubt they fit anymore.” His hands run up and down Jason’s arms, his eyes crinkling at the edges. “When did you grow up to be so tall?”

It’s rhetorical, and Jason’s mouth twists into a smile that actually reaches his eyes. He doesn’t move when Alfred moves him back down onto the couch, cradling his head in his hands and turning it back and forth, assessing the damage. He casts Bruce a disapproving (and somewhat angry) look, surmising as much that Bruce had been the cause of it. “Nothing permanent.” He agrees with Bruce, his tone clipped. He removes the instant ice pack out of the bag, squeezing it until the temperature began to drop. “As Master Bruce said, your things remain untouched- you’re free to stay in your room if you’d like.” He takes Jason’s hand, wraps it around the ice pack, then brings it up to his lip while he worked on patching the smaller cuts on his face and neck, sealing some with the liquid stitches.

“My...?” Jason looks like he’s going to cry again, but his face moves strangely, twitching and cringing, trying to both hold it in and not inconvenience Alfred. His right hand curls into a tight fist, and his words come out sounding wet. “Bruce, this isn’t fair to you- you don’t know what I’ve done-”

“And I don’t care what you’ve done.” Bruce holds up one flat hand, shaking his head. His chest hurts, and he’s reminded of the time there’d been a hole in his shirt that he’d walked around in all night in the Gotham Winter without knowing the source of the sharp cold he’d felt. “Get some sleep, Jason- we can talk in the morning.”

Jason opens his mouth several times to respond, the cold compress at the very edge of his mouth, but closes it after a heavy sigh and a long look away from Bruce and Alfred. “Does the Manor even have heat in it anymore?” For some reason, he looks sad about this, and panic flashes in Bruce’s chest.

“There’s a backup generator. Just in case.” Like nothing had ever happened, like he hadn’t changed and nothing around him had changed... Offering Jason his room when it was probably covered in dust and grime and freezing in the middle of November. Bruce exchanges a look with Alfred. “But you’re welcome to stay in any of the guest houses- Dick sometimes stops by, so it’s clean.” He tilts his head, back and forth, the ghost of a smile. “Relatively speaking.”

Jason rolls his eyes, then flinches slightly. The onset of a headache. “He still steps out of his clothes and leaves them?” Jason clicks his tongue and shakes his head. “ _I’m_ not gonna be the one to pick up after him. I can stay in my room.” There’s hesitation in the possessive pronoun. Like it wasn’t his room any longer. “I’ve stayed in worse places than a slightly cold room with a little bit of dust on it.”

Alfred, collecting the supplies he’d taken out of the first aid kit, lets out a soft snort before shaking his head. “There is more than one bed in this guest house, Master Jason- and it’ll be over my dead body that you are anything less than comfortable when you go to sleep tonight.” He cracks his knuckles, shakes his head again, then places the kit to the side. “ _Honestly_ , who do you take me for?” He extends his hand to help Jason up- when he avoids his grasp, he lets out a hiss at the damage on his hands.

“Sorry, it’s, uh, been a while since someone-” Jason flexes his fingers. Closes his eyes and swallows. “I know you said that I just came back, but I gotta say- there’s no way I’m alive right now. This... This can’t be real.” Even though his hands sting and burn and pulse, it’s a dream. Or it’s Hell, and this is his punishment. A half-actualized fantasy of everything that should’ve been.

“Oh, it’s quite real.” Alfred opens the kit back up, plucking out the Neosporin and the gauze. Wrapping Jason’s palms while he watched, startled and breathing heavily again. “It’s going to get even more real, I’m afraid, in the morning, once everyone has their wits about them and we’re all not half shell-shocked. Now, the second I stop finding wounds on you, Master Jason, is the second I’m sending you off to bed.”

Jason rolls his eyes again, but he’s smiling. “C’mon, Al, that could be all night. And _then_ who would steal all of your good blankets?” When Alfred finishes wrapping up his hands (after shooting Jason a stern look), Jason turns them over and looks at the handiwork. His eyes are swollen and somewhat bloodshot, and he blinks slower. “It’s _also_ been a while since I’ve been ‘sent off to bed’. But, hey, I haven’t won a fight against you yet, Alfred.”

“And now isn’t the time to try to start!” Alfred finally sets the kit to the side, brushing his pants off in a theatrical gesture. “If you’d give me just one moment to tidy the extra bedroom and make the bed.” He casts another look at Jason. “Don’t go disappearing on me.”

Bruce laughs, somewhat uneasily. “I’ll be sure to keep an eye on him, Alfred.” Alfred rolls his eyes as if he were joking, but they both recognize the line of nerves underneath the words. Fear of turning their backs and finding Jason gone. He leaves with fast strides, and the door creaking open towards the back of the house is the loudest thing Bruce has heard all night.

“I, uh, ran my patrol last night.” Jason starts. Bruce wants to tell him that there’s nothing to be nervous about, but can’t think of a way to phrase the sentiment without making him more nervous. “That’s kinda why I stopped by the Cave to begin with. Gotham’s always Gotham, no matter how... Different things are.” He crosses his arms, his hands maneuvered so that the palms of his hands weren’t in contact with anything. “My apartment is gone.” He shakes his head, then meets Bruce’s eyes. “That actually doesn’t matter- there’s a newspaper stand outside of the complex. I saw something about... Batman branding criminals.”

Bruce’s heart skids to a panicked halt in his chest. He remembers the Batman that chastised Jason for kicking villains too hard. The Batman that advocated rehabilitation over violence. In Jason’s tired green eyes, he remembers intentionally forgetting that Batman- claiming that he’d been too soft.

He remembers idealism, what Batman _and Robin_ had stood for, and he realizes how badly he’s ruined himself, and how far he’d fallen using Jason’s death as an excuse for needless violence.

Jason’s still talking.

“Is it Clayface? Joker? I don’t know enough about this Gotham, but the article mentioned a few people getting killed in the radius of the explosion so I knew it couldn’t have been you.” Bruce is staring at the red bat on his chest. Jason tries not to let that deter him. “Bruce, I don’t know who’s posing as you- because it’s _very obvious_ that you haven’t passed the cowl down- but it’s only a matter of time before this escalates and you get caught in the crosshairs.”

“It’s me,” Bruce says, simply, and swallows his heartbeat while it tried to climb out of his throat. “I...” He moves to explain himself, but Jason’s entire face drops, eyes wide and mouth open.

Jason shakes his head and lets out a short laugh, but he’s visibly rattled. “Ha ha, old man. Good joke and all, but- really-”

“I... I took your death hard, Jason.” Bruce looks away from him. At his hands. _A few people getting killed... knew it couldn’t have been you._ “I haven’t been the best, well... I haven’t always done what needed to...” Finally, he lets out a sad laugh, dropping his head into his hands, staring straight at the floor. “Jason, I don’t know if you’d recognize as the same man you knew ten years ago if you spent more time around me.”

There’s a silence in the room. Alfred stands at the edge of it, but doesn’t walk in to disturb the moment.

“Bruce, I’ve _killed_ people.” Jason bites in, moving closer to Bruce’s seat on the couch. When Bruce sees his shadow drop over him, he looks up. “I’ve killed _a lot_ of people. And you were always the one to tell me that, whether or not I thought they deserved it, their lives still meant something.” Bruce doesn’t recall this. “Even after all of the bullshit, the revenge scheme, every time I’ve betrayed your trust... You’ve never turned your back on me.”

“Jason, I... I don’t really know what you’re talking about.” He swallows. “Felipe?” But that’s the only one he can name.

Jason freezes and draws back slightly. “Bruce, I don’t... I don’t know how it’s possible, but I’ve been alive for a long time, and you moved on from my death and have so many Robins I can’t count them all.” He swallows. “I... I wanted you to kill the Joker, avenge my death- that’s... that’s how it always was when someone’s kid died when I was still living in Crime Alley. I was mad and awful, and I killed people trying to hurt you-”

“I don’t remember any of that, Jason.” Bruce shakes his head. “Are you sure that wasn’t a dream you had?” He remembers that Jason had been dead for a long time and, remembering this, fears what kind of Hell his son had faced. Rages at the audacity of putting his son anywhere other than Heaven.

“I... Things are different here, Bruce. Things are different, but we’re... We’re still the same people. I don’t think I’m the same Robin you lost-” He swallows and his eyes are wet. Bruce wants it to be wrong, but he can’t disprove Jason’s claim, no matter how strange it sounded. “-but I’m still Jason, and you’re still Bruce, and if there’s anyone in this room that could bounce back from a decade of straddling the division of black and white morality... Between the two of us, you have the best odds.”

“I...” Bruce’s throat lets out a dry sound. He closes his mouth. “I don’t know what to say, Jason, really. The vote of confidence is...” Reassuring. Heartening. “But about you not being the same Robin-”

“Bruce, this is gonna come out sounding stupid but-” Jason shakes his head and plays with the melted ice pack in his hand, rolling his fingers against it. “I don’t think I’m the Jason you wanted to see, but I’m the Jason you needed to see.”

Bruce looks away, thinking. When he turns back to face Jason, he finds a small smile on his face. “I think I understood.” Jason’s shoulders drop- Bruce hadn’t noticed when he’d gotten so tense. “What’s happened to you, Jason... There aren’t enough words to describe how sorry I am- there’s not a day that passes where I don’t think if I had been just a little faster-”

“I forgave you a long time ago for not saving me.” Jason cuts in, quickly, though he looks uncomfortable. “At this point, I don’t even care that the Joker is still alive and pressing his purple suits, as long as we can kick his murderous ass and put him on permanent lockdown. Even when he gets out, it just starts over again. It’s all damage control, because killing him risks escalation. I’ve heard the whole spiel- lived through it a few times.”

“You’re not wrong, though.” Bruce sighs, dragging his hands down his face until they rest on his cheeks. “Of all the people I’ve... hurt, inadvertently or otherwise, I never put the Joker down.” The crest of panic in his chest comes crashing down, and Bruce stares, unblinking, at the parallel couch over Jason’s shoulder. “The joke really is on me.”

For the first time that night, Jason’s face curves down into a hard frown. “Shut the hell up, oh my god.” His lip curls slightly in distaste, and it splits again, bleeding. “I did not die for you to let your life be goddamn defined by the bullshit of one green-haired bastard. Your life didn’t end just because mine did, _holy shit_.”

That shut Bruce up. “You’re right.” And he nods, quick and short, then shakes his head because all of those years wasted on contemplating his dubious morality are shot down in the span of a minute by his son. “You’re absolutely right.” The years of excused violence. Blaming a parent’s rage.

Jason didn’t die for him to become the same type of monster as the criminals he fought.

Jason tilts his head, his frown dropping. “I guess there really is a first time for everything.” He reaches his hand out to help Bruce up but, the second Bruce sees the bandages and raises an eyebrow, he pulls his hand back. “Hey, all I was trying to do was get to bed- whether or not you took my hand was completely up to you.” He heads towards Alfred, smiling. “Even creatures of the night like us need some sleep.”

“Jason-” Bruce calls out before he rounds the corner, and Jason pauses, looking back. “Thank you. I missed you.”

“Someone has to keep your head on straight- Alfred always said he wouldn’t retire, but...” Alive and joking, Jason raises his eyebrows and tilts his head towards Alfred, who huffs. “But, really, B, no problem- ‘s what family’s for.”


End file.
